Last Thursday we held a Twitter Chat to share tips and advice on travelling with children. From ingenious ideas for those long car journeys to fun and free activities on the beach – you guys had everything covered!

We had great fun chatting with everyone and seeing people share and discover some amazing new tips. The hour flew by and we can’t wait to do it again!

Here are some of our favourite tips from the #MatalanSummerTips chat, who each won a £20 voucher to spend in one of our stores. We hope you enjoy spending them!

Last month we invited four fashion bloggers to dive into our Art Pop collection and put together an outfit for just over £50. Featuring pretty pastels and prints, Art Pop is the hottest spring trend, and our bloggers put together some great outfits. We asked our readers to vote for their favourite and here are the results!

With her floral dress and matching cardigan, the winner is… Rai from Blargle Fargle!

This month, we invited four fashion bloggers to make a statement in our new favourite trend, Art Pop. Its playful mix of pastels and prints is perfect for SS14. Straight from the catwalk, Art Pop looks amazing season to season. We love it, and so do our bloggers!

With a budget of just £50, it was their job to choose a gorgeous outfit from Art Pop – and they didn’t disappoint! Putting their fashion expertise to the test, they styled four fabulous outfits. Check them out, and let us know your favourite look in the comments section below. With your help, the blogger with the most votes will win another £50 to spend in store or online.

Last month saw four bloggers go head to head in the battle of geometric prints and hot pinks in the Graphic Mix edition of the Style Project. There was a great range of outfits, from the city slick to the urban chic, and each outfit came in at just over £50. We asked our readers to vote for their favourite look, and here are the results!

Last Monday we hopped on a train and ventured to the big smoke for the Swap Shop Blogger Event hosted by Vouchercodes.co.uk in partnership with several British brands and we were lucky enough to be invited and get involved in the action!

Children and adults alike love to roll up their sleeves, don an apron and get their hands dirty in the kitchen to celebrate the tradition of Shrove Tuesday. Pancake Day is just around the corner with the day falling on Tuesday 4th March, so why not indulge in the art of flipping pancakes and smother with your favourite toppings. So avoid a flop on Pancake Day and stock up on your kitchen essentials with our cooking and bakeware collection.

Stuck on costume ideas for World Book Day or do you wish to get creative and let your and their imaginations run? One of our favourite and most imaginative mummy bloggers; Boo Roo and Tigger Too, accepted the challenge to create a costume for World Book Day and boy did she come up with the goods!

Whether you take the old-school Blue Peter approach to creating wild and wonderful fancy dress costumes or would prefer a helping hand from us, read on and take your pick from our handy and helpful tips on your dress-up dilemmas!

We challenged mummy blogger, Boo Roo and Tigger Too, to create a cost-effective costume to show just how easy it is!

This simple but easy Little Miss Muffet costume can be put together in minute, which is great if you get given short notice for a school dressing up day. Simply re-purpose an old faithful gingham check school dress, accessorise with a wooden spoon, apron and use a handkerchief to create a frilly hat. An easy peasy way to take a fairytale favourite and create a costume!

However if you are pushed for time and need a quick and easy solution that can be used again at Halloween, check out our Character Shop. Here we house all of his and her favourites including Snow White, Spiderman and Goldilocks.

Drop us a comment below and let us know what your little tinker is dressing up as in aid of World Book Day. If you have any handy tips on how to pull a fancy dress costume out of the bag with time to spare before the school bell, we would love to hear from you! Still need some inspiration- check out our Character Shop today!

Here at Matalan HQ we are super excited for the start of London Fashion Week. The 3rd week in February signals the start of the new season with the launch of hottest trends for AW14.

Join us this weekend to get a sneaky peek at all the action as it happens as one of our favourite bloggers, Amy from The Little Magpie, is headed to Somerset House to take street style snaps and report on the weekend including one of our resident designers, Julien Macdonald! Keep your eye on Amy’s Twitter feed and the handy hashtag #MatalanLovesLFW to get your slice of the fashion pie from the comfort of your sofa as and when it happens!

With bold monochrome prints and splashes of pink, our Graphic Mix trend was the perfect theme for the first Style Project of 2014!

We asked four fashion bloggers to put together a whole outfit from the Graphic Mix collection, with a budget of just £50, and they didn’t disappoint! Take a look at the four fab outfits below and let us know which one is your favourite in the comments section. The blogger with the most votes will win another £50 to spend in store or online!

Calling all the single ladies! Yes to para-phrase Queen B, here at Matalan HQ we understand that Valentines Day doesn’t have to alienate those who will be spending the day single and fabulous. Treating yourself to some new garms and updating your wardrobe is a treat that can be rewarded all year round, but the 14th February is the time to feel the love and treat yourself to something fantastic… go on, you deserve it!